Casey vs Consequences
by one of the lost
Summary: Casey's choice to serve in Afghanistan changes lives in ways not thought possible. consequences
1. Rude Awakening

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

xXx

The first thing that came to John's mind as he awoke was pain. _Not exactly a great start to a day_, he thought, as he opened his eyes to take in his surroundings.

_Typical hospital room_, he thought gloomily as he looked at the IV in his arm. Looking closer at the at the IV bag, he saw in small print, Balboa Naval Hospital.

_Great, so I'm definitely not in Afghanistan anymore_ he thought with a scowl. He did a quick inventory of himself and found multiple wounds that were stitched up on his torso, legs, and arms. A long cut on his face that would surely scar over, along with tender areas all over his head told him that he had definitely suffered from a pretty decent concussion, which explained why he'd been flown back to the States.

Just as he was mulling over the idea of extracting his IV, a nurse walked in with a tray of bandages, and stopped, clearly surprised that he was awake

He looked at her with narrowed eyes when she stuck her head out the door, and called for a doctor. Then she set the tray down and proceeded to take his vitals.

"How are you feeling, Major Casey?" she asked with a tone devoid of every emotion. Typical bedside manner of your standard issue nurse, especially Navy nurse, John thought with a sneer.

"I'm fine. How long was I out?" Casey asked bluntly.

After the nurse finished taking his pulse she looked at him and said, "About two weeks, sir."

Casey grunted his acknowledgment, and allowed the woman to continue her work. After another minute, the door to his room opened once again, and a short Navy doctor wearing Commander bars walked in.

"Good morning, Major, I'm glad you're awake. My name is Commander Barnes, head of polytrauma at Balboa Naval Medical Center."

"What's my prognosis, sir?" Casey asked, again cutting directly to the point.

Doctor Barns picked up Casey's chart from the foot of his bed and began to summarize his condition.

"Thirty-seven year old white male, suffering multiple lacerations caused by shrapnel, four broken ribs caused by impact, and a traumatic brain injury with contusions on the frontal lobe, which corresponds with an occipital skull fracture. From what my records tell me, you were within the kill radius of a rocket propelled grenade, and were thrown back several meters where you impacted into the side of a building. Luckily, there's no extensive internal organ damage, although you were comatose for the past couple of weeks."

Casey mulled over this information, and wasn't pleased.

"What's my expected time to be able to return to full duty, sir?"

Casey had a good idea what the answer was, but wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth so to speak.

Doctor Barns sighed and placed his hands into the pockets of his white lab coat.

"Major, I'm afraid with your injuries you won't be returning to full duty for a considerable amount of time, if at all. In fact, we've already begun to draft papers for a medical discharge from the Corps. I'm very sorry, Major."

Casey scowled at the doctor, not wanting to believe what he just heard, but there was no point in arguing the issue with the man. A year ago, one of Casey's best men suffered a traumatic brain injury, and he was discharged fairly quickly. The Marine Corps wasn't a place for the sick, or wounded, especially when it came to head injuries.

"When will it be official, sir?" he asked. His normal tone was replaced with one that was slightly subdued, but still gruff.

"We'd like to begin physical rehabilitation in a few days if you're up to it. After a month of that, we'll cut you loose, and you'll begin drawing your veteran's benefits. I really do hate to do this Major, but due to the new information we've been reviewing about traumatic brain injuries, we would be placing you at more risk than necessary by allowing you to return to full duty. You've put a career in, so you'll be able to retire with a full pension, plus your disability rating."

Casey scowled, but ultimately nodded to the doctor, and asked the nurse to adjust his bed to where he could sit up.

"Well, Major, I'm going to check on you later. There'll be a civilian neurology intern assigned to you, so you'll have to undergo more examinations."

_Great, I'm getting discharged and I have to let some greasy nerd practice on me, so he could tell all the floozies at the bar that he saved a Marine's life. God, I'm about to be sick. _

"Yes, sir. I think I'd like to be alone for a while, if it's okay…"

The doctor nodded, and motioned for the nurse to follow him out.

As soon as the door shut, John leaned his face into the palms of his hands, and bit back a scream. He knew that this had always been a possibility, but he couldn't believe that after twenty years, his term in the military was over.

He had busted his ass as a youth in varsity athletics and academics to win an appointment to the United States Naval Academy, and endured four long, challenging years there playing football, excelling in academics, and busting his ass to get good remarks on his review boards. After that came the long and, at times, painful infantry training, to be followed up with more training once he was accepted into Force Recon.

After a year with the snake eaters, he was officially inducted into the NSA and had endured even more hardship, especially in becoming John Casey.

After all of those years of sacrifice and loyalty; he was being discarded as a cripple.

Laying his head back, he noticed that he was developing a massive headache. Ordinarily, he would just bite his lip and endure, but John Casey no longer had the motivation to endure. He was done.

Sighing, he reached over for the call button. After a few minutes of patiently waiting, the same miss efficient popped her head into the room with a raised eyebrow.

He looked at her, pointed to his head and said, "Morphine."

xXx

After several hours of riding out a very nice dose of morphine, Casey was starting to wonder when that nasty civilian intern was going to come. His lip curled at the thought that he would soon have to return to society as… one of them. The mere thought of the idea repulsed him so greatly, that he was fairly certain that he could probably vomit on command.

He was so distracted by his thoughts; he didn't notice his door open, and a shy looking brunette looking at him.

"What?" he barked. He had no patience for this.

The woman bit her lip and walked into the room.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Major Casey, but Doctor Barns wanted me to do a neurological evaluation of you."

Casey raised an eyebrow. _This young girl was a doctor?_ She couldn't be over twenty-seven years old, so it was plausible but he doubted she had much experience in the realm of medicine. Although she was filled out rather nicely, and had very deep brown eyes. All in all, she was the typical young lady that Casey normally went after, although he was in no mood to do so right now.

"Name."

This caused the girl's eyebrows to shoot up in surprise, but she quickly replaced it with a smile and said, "Dr. Eleanor Bartowski, but you can call me Ellie."

Casey grunted again laying his head back.

"You're a civilian, why are you working at a naval hospital?" ignoring Ellie's attempt to be friendly. "So you get your rocks off trying to order around servicemen?" Casey admitted that was a harsh statement, but after being told he was as about as useful to the Corps as a dead fish he didn't care how harsh he was.

He slowly saw Dr. Bartowski's expression turn from timid but friendly, to very annoyed.

"I may be a civilian, Major Casey, but I took this job because not only do I specialize in neuroscience, I think that this is where I can do the most good," she stated coolly.

Casey raised his eyebrow again, glad that she finally was showing some backbone. He was about to shoot another snide remark back at her, but she beat him to the punch.

"And since I'm a _Doctor_, at a _naval hospital_ I'm technically your superior since you are the _patient_."

Casey looked at her with a dumbfounded expression.

"Believe me, doctor, this is the last place I thought I'd find myself." His tone clearly showing the fatigue of a once career driven Marine recently informed his plans were going to be cut short.

Apparently this woman was able to pick up on emotions fairly easily, as her face softened.

"I'm sorry… I just don't like being snapped at, Major."

Casey shrugged.

"It's fine, doctor."

He then saw her grin a bit before she held out her hand and said: "Let's try this again. You can call me Ellie, Major."

He accepted her hand and shook it firmly, but not too firm.

"John," he said, with a slight smile. _I guess there's no reason to take my frustration out on this young lady, especially since she's here to help._

She smiled at him. She obviously didn't like confrontation.

"Great, John. Okay, so my notes tell me that you've been comatose for several weeks. Your MRI last week showed that your contusions on your frontal lobe are healing nicely, let's just do a quick neurological examination and we'll go from there."

Casey grunted in agreement.

"Okay, look at the corner to the left; I'm just going to check your pupils real quick."

Casey did as instructed, and she leaned over him shining a penlight in his eyes. He had to admit that her perfume smelled good, like flowers.

_Easy, Casey_, he told himself. _You were learning how to shoot a man a mile and a half away when she was a still in high school. That's if she didn't graduate early num nuts_, his brain shot back at him.

"Okay, your pupils are dilating correctly; let's look at motor function now. Raise your arms, and keep me from pushing them down please."

He did so, with ease and she flashed him a pearly white smile.

"Great, now let's check your hands. I want you to touch your thumb to each of your fingers starting with your right hand please."

He did so without a problem, wondering if these tests really did show any problems in the brain.

"Okay, now the other hand please," she said with another smile. Casey could get used to this kind of attention.

He lifted his hand and touched his thumb to his pinky… or at least he thought that's what he was trying to do. _The fuck?_ He missed his pinky completely. He tried again to no avail. He tried his other fingers, but he couldn't do it.

He looked at Ellie with concern, and saw the same emotion written across her face.

She scribbled a note down in his chart.

"Okay, this just means that there's some residual damage to the motor functions in your brain, but that's expected with an injury like yours."

Casey wasn't reassured by this. "So, will it get better?"

"I'm not going to lie to you, John; this isn't going to be something that's going to snap back into place overnight. It's going to take patience, and rest. We'll assign you some therapy, and see how it goes."

This was even more sobering to Casey, as he once thought of himself as an invincible force like any Marine would. Not someone who could break.

"What's the longest recovery time you've seen?"

She looked at him and momentarily chewed on the side of her mouth.

"To be honest, I'm still pretty new to the field. I finished up med school a shot time ago, but from what I studied, this is more of a crap shoot rather than an exact science."

She must have seen his face fall, because she was quick to say, "John, I'm going to do everything I can to get you better. I'm not going to say I know it's hard because I don't, but please trust me."

He looked into her eyes and saw she was telling the truth. This wasn't some doctor that was looking for a high salary… if she was, she would have interned at a civilian hospital, not at Balboa.

She placed her hand on his arm, before stepping back.

"Okay, I need to go get this data into the system. If you need anything, buzz the nurse and ask for me. I'm sure you're probably hungry, so I'll have some dinner brought up soon, okay?"

Casey nodded and gave her a small smile, which she returned.

As she moved to the door, he took a deep breath and said, "Thank you Doc… Ellie."

She looked back at him and grinned. "You're welcome, John."

xXx

Ya'll let me know what ya'll think, and thanks to my beta, KuryakinGirl.


	2. Left Alone

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

xXx

"Get to cover!" John shouted to his team as automatic fire ripped through the mountain air.

He fired two quick bursts from his M4 Carbine at the insurgent muzzle flashes, and bolted behind a burned out truck.

John scanned his platoon's position; relieved to see that none of his men were still in the kill zone of what he knew was going to be a particularly nasty ambush.

"Corporal Martinez, call in for air support! Sergeant Rivera, take Jones and Lu to the left up the hill; try and flank them!" John shouted, his mind racing from the sheer surprise of the ambush. John saw at least fifty muzzle flashes, easily outnumbering the thirteen men under his command.

_This was supposed to be a fucking friendly village! _John thought, knowing that the Battalion Intelligence Officer would have hell to pay after this was over.

He leaned around the truck and fired another burst, killing one of the gunmen. He aimed for another muzzle flash and was about to shoot, when a full burst of fire hit mere inches next to him. John threw himself back behind the limited protection of the truck as a full barrage of weapons fire kicked up dust around the vehicle.

"Major, Cobra Gunships are in rout, ETA twenty minutes!" Martinez yelled over the roar of combat.

"Good, now get your ass up and put some 40 mikes on that ridge!"

"Aye-aye, sir!" Martinez began launching grenade after grenade at the muzzle flashes. The sound of screams and Farsi curses was music to John's ears, only to be drowned out by Sergeant Rivera's M240 Golf spraying tracer rounds at the remaining muzzle flashes, designating targets for the rest of the platoon.

John knew that the tide had turned, but he needed to press it to his advantage before the insurgents regained their organization, and decimated John's platoon.

"Gunny Hormack, get your fire team into the second story of that house across the street, and set up suppressive fire. Everyone else, get off your asses, and start taking out those point targets."

John heard various acknowledgments to his commands, and was about to lean around the corner of the truck again, when a powerful concussion knocked him flat on his ass. More explosions could be felt up and down John's platoon. Thankfully he hadn't heard any of his men cry out in pain, yet.

_Fuck RPG's. _

"Hormack," John snarled into his throat mike.

"Go ahead, sir."

"Where're those damn rockets coming from?"

"Looks like they're shooting em from some cave entrances, sir. They're jumping back into the entrance by the time I get a chance to shoot em."

"Okay Hormack, you and your team focus on the RPGs, or this fight is gonna be over fast."

"Yes, sir!" Hormack shouted.

John shifted his gaze to Hormack's position, and cringed when he saw a group of insurgents creeping up behind his Marines…

"John?" A woman's voice came seemingly out of nowhere.

A sweat covered Casey bolted upright in his bed, and looked around with wild eyes, obviously confused by his surroundings.

Ellie quickly placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down.

"John, it's…" Ellie started, but was cut off, as John jumped away from her, and fell off the side of his hospital bed, landing with a loud thud. He barely noticed the pain from having ripped his IV out of his arm, and didn't feel the blood that was streaming out steadily.

He scooted back to the corner of the wall, breathing heavily.

Ellie held up her hands, "John, it's me. It's Ellie." She wanted to calm him down before he smacked his head on anything.

John's eyes focused on the petite doctor, and relaxed a little.

"Hey," he croaked; his throat dry from heavy breathing.

Ellie darted around the bed and knelt in front of him with a worried smile on her face.

"Hey, you okay?"

John looked down, ashamed of his reaction.

Ellie grimaced and placed her hand in his, unsure of how to help a man that was clearly used to always being able to help himself.

"Was it Afghanistan?" She asked, hoping to get him to open up a little. She noticed the blood on his arm from having his IV ripped out, but she wanted to calm him down before she patched him up. One thing she had quickly learned from working with wounded Marines was they tended to be more cooperative with treatment when they were calm. Sometimes it was like trying to get a wounded lion to behave.

Casey sighed, and closed his eyes; a fresh migraine beginning to throb from his sudden movement.

_Great, I'm having flashbacks, and now Miss Wonderful here wants to make it all better for me… problem is, I don't think I'd mind telling her. Where'd your nuts go, Johnny-boy?_

"Ya… it was Afghanistan. Actually the same battle that put me here," he said with a voice mixed with anger and depression.

Ellie gently squeezed his hand, "It sounded awful, John."

Casey gave a sarcastic snort.

"I hadn't gotten to the really bad part yet."

Ellie had no clue how to respond to that other than to squeeze John's hand. She knew the general summary of how John had received his injuries, and knew that he had been assigned to a Force Recon platoon, but other than that she knew nothing.

She couldn't imagine the horrors of combat, but was well aware of the impact it was having on her patient. During her indoctrination to the polytrauma staff at Balboa, she had been told that most traumatic brain injury victims developed post traumatic stress disorder, and that they normally would need extensive mental health counseling. It was clear that John was one of those patients, but he hadn't been very forthcoming to the psychiatrist that had done the initial screening on him, and that was unfortunately common as most Marines didn't want the stigma that went along with having mental issues to follow them around once they were discharged or sent back to their units.

She bit her lip and took a chance, "What… What was the bad part, John? Was it when you got hurt?"

John inhaled deeply and looked into her eyes. They were warm and inviting; a dangerous combination to a man feeling vulnerable.

"Ellie… I can't really…"

He looked down again, unable to meet the intensity of the beautiful doctor's eyes.

He closed his eyes and saw his men lying in blood stained dirt, and shuddered.

"The worst part… wasn't when I got hurt. It was before, and it's something that I can't seem to get out of my head," he said, voice thick with emotion.

Ellie reached out with her other hand, and traced her finger under John's jaw; tilting his head back up to meet her eyes.

"What was it, John?" Her was voice barely above a whisper, not wanting to derail John from his current train of thought.

John opened his eyes and took in the face in front of him. It was etched with concern, and trustworthiness. At that point, he knew that he could trust her with anything.

"There's a reason why there aren't any other Marines from my platoon here. They're all dead."

Ellie felt her mouth drop open, and stifled a gasp. She could almost feel the immense emotional pain radiating from her patient, and knew that it was agonizing for him to have to deal with all of his men dying while under his command.

She swallowed, "What happened?"

John shuddered, "It was an ambush. We were supposed to meet with a contact in a village that would turn over intelligence on al Qaeda's movements in the region, but when we arrived there was no one there. We were walking down the road, and then all hell broke loose."

John took a deep, rattled breath before continuing, "We tried to counter it… but there were just too damn many of them. My Gunny and his team were trying to knock out some RPG gunners, when… when some insurgents had circled their position and blew them away…"

John's voice was almost gone, and he was starting to shake.

"John, I'm so sorry."

He gave her a grunt and halfheartedly shrugged his shoulders.

"You tell yourself that, as an officer, you're going to lose Marines. It's a fact of life that I've dealt with before, but it never gets any easier."

Ellie opened her mouth to apologize, but changed her mind. She needed him to finish talking; he obviously had more to say.

"Y'know, it's a lot more difficult when you lose men because of something that could have been prevented. Intel said that was a friendly village; they said there wasn't any need to have air support on site… We called it in, but by the time the slicks got on site, it was all over. Why? There wasn't any reason for this to happen!"

Sadness was quickly turning into anger, and his body tensed as if he was getting ready to leap into action. Ellie could feel his rage as well as she felt his sadness. She had always been able to detect emotions, but with John, it was like she was perfectly in tuned with him. It was a revolution that startled, yet strangely thrilled her.

"John, there was nothing that you could have done. It wasn't your fault."

John shook his head, "It is, Ellie. When I first had my second lieutenant bars pinned on, I swore to myself that I would do everything possible to bring the men under my command home safe. I should've gone over the intelligence reports myself! I was in the NS…"

_This is why it isn't a good idea to let everything out, jackass, you start spewing shit you can't talk about! _John swore at himself, and noticed the curiosity in Ellie's soft eyes.

"The NSA, John?" Ellie asked, everything starting to make sense. John blamed himself for not checking out the intelligence on the mission, even though he was fully capable of interpreting the information himself.

John weakly nodded, "I can't really talk about it, Ellie. It's pretty complicated."

Ellie nodded back, and looked at John's arm. It had stopped bleeding, but it needed to be cleaned and bandaged.

John followed her eyes and smiled sheepishly, "Sorry, I wasn't really thinking."

She smiled back, happy to see even a small smile on his face, "It's okay, how about we get you back in bed so I can clean it up. How's your head feeling?"

John grimaced, "It's… fine."

Ellie took out her pen light and quickly flashed it in John's eyes. When she saw him close his eyes in pain, she gave him a somewhat stern look, "Now John, you need to remember that the more pain you're in, the longer it's going to take you to heal."

John sheepishly nodded, and with Ellie's help stood up and lay down on his bed. He wanted to grunt in annoyance when Ellie pulled the blankets over him, but kept silent. She truly believed in taking care of her patients, and that was an honorable thing for a doctor.

"Okay, lemme go grab a new IV, and some morphine, I'll be back in a flash, okay?" She said as she flashed John another smile.

John grinned back, both loving at hating the attention. Mostly hating the fact that she was able to get him to mention that he was NSA.

_You're lucky she's not a spy, dumbass; otherwise she'd get you to commit treason in a heartbeat. _

After a few minutes, Ellie briskly walked back in and began to tenderly scrub John's arm with an alcohol wipe.

"Shouldn't a nurse do that?"

Ellie smiled and said, "Normally, yes. But I thought it'd be a good idea to not let Nurse Gretchen at you for ripping out your IV."

John gave a mirthless laugh, "Thanks, Doc."

She smiled at him again, and gave a slight chuckle.

After another minute she started wrapping up his arm with a bandage, with a very thoughtful look on her face.

"What're you thinking about?" John asked, curious to know what was on her mind.

She looked up at him hesitantly, and said, "I was just wondering what made you join the military."

John breathed in slowly. "Well, since I was a kid, I knew that my place was in the Marine Corps."

"Oh? Why?"

John pressed his lips together, unsure that he wanted to bring up this story, but unable to stop himself from doing so.

"My father was in the Corps. He was a career officer, a Force Recon Marine like me," he said as Ellie skillfully slid in an IV into the vein on the back of his hand.

"Ya, he would go off for months at a time, sometimes without a moment's notice."

Ellie gave his arm a small squeeze at that. "Sounds like he had a big influence on you."

John nodded, "He did. He was a good man."

Ellie looked up at him, obviously aware of John's meaning. She bit back her question out of respect for his privacy. This man obviously had felt a tremendous amount of loss throughout his life. A loss that didn't seem to get any easier to shoulder with the passing of time. It was saddening to see a proud man like John hurt.

"So why'd you decide to become an officer?"

Thankful that she didn't ask about his father, John replied, "Well, for one, my mother threatened to kick my ass if I didn't go to college, and dad was an Annapolis grad, so I thought that it would be fitting for me to graduate from there myself."

Ellie looked at him appraisingly; this man was tough and smart. That was a combination that seemed so scarce in her life.

"I'm sure that was a challenge," she said as she filled a needle with morphine.

John shrugged, "It wasn't really anything more challenging than I've done since then. I sorta figured out that school is something that can be treated like cleaning a weapon. The more you practice, the better you get."

"Not many people have that discipline," she said, remembering how half of her med school class flunked out before their first year was over.

"No, but that's just because they haven't learned how to yet; that's what I always told my men. Whenever someone would fall out on a twenty mile hike, I'd go up and mentor them. I'd motivate them."

Ellie pushed the needle into John's IV and slowly gave him the pain killers, "You sound like you were more of a teacher than a Major."

That caused John to snort, "I don't want to give any false impressions. I was a hard ass to them when they needed a kick in the ass. I never was soft on them, but I didn't make their lives any more difficult than I had to. I'd always lead the company on hikes and sing the cadence."

Ellie arched an eyebrow as she tossed the needle into a biohazard container, "You can sing?"

Feeling the effects of the morphine, John gave a sheepish grin, "A little bit." Not wanting to tell her about being a choir boy in school or church.

"What's your favorite song to sing?" Ellie asked, eager to learn more about this gentle giant.

John leaned back and thought for a moment, "I remember there's one cadence I always loved to sing on hikes."

"Really, can you sing it for me?"

_This woman is good. _

John gave a nod, "Sure, but don't blame me if I make you cringe."

Ellie smiled, "I'm sure I'll like it, John."

John took a deep breath, and softly began the cadence. He'd never sang this one softly, but he didn't want to wake up any of the other patients.

"Somewhere in the dessert,

In the still of the night,

There's a US Mar-ine,

And he's longing for a fight,

Don't cry him a tear,

He don't want your sympathy,

He's a US Mar-ine,

And that's all he wants to be,

Wa-ho-ho,

Wa-ho-ho,

Wa-ho-ho

Somewhere there's a mother,

Who's longing for her son,

He's a US Marine,

And he was the only one,

Some where there's a daughter,

Who's longing for her dad,

He's a US Mar-ine,

And she's always looking sad,

Some where there's a girlfriend,

Who's longing for her guy,

He's a US Mar-ine,

And she's always sobbing bye,

Wa-ho-ho,

Wa-ho-ho,

Wa-ho-ho,"

John was barely able to finish the song. His voice was cracked, and he felt hot tears running down his face from a song that held more meaning than he'd ever let on. He'd given so much to the Corps, and in return the Corps was going to make him leave.

He looked at Ellie and saw fresh tears streaming down her face as well, it was as if she was looking right through him, and was able to see the source of his sorrow.

"You gave up a lot, didn't you?"

_You don't know the half of it, and you likely never will_, he thought sadly.

"Ya," he said, surprised at how shaky his voice was.

Ellie sat on the bed next to him, and wrapped her arms around his neck. John choked on a sob, trying to hold it back.

"John," Ellie whispered, "let it out. Let it go."

That was all it took for John, the walls of solitude that he'd built around himself over the past twenty years finished crumbling.

Hard sobs racked his body as he let out tears for his men that he'd lost, for a mother that thought her son was dead, for a girlfriend that had loved him and had fathered his child, and for his dear daughter that he'd never know. He sobbed for a life that he had turned his back on, and in consequence the life he had chosen had turned its back on him.

He was lost without hope. So he continued to sob himself, until he returned to a drug induced sleep, comforted by the fact that Ellie held him the entire way.

xXx

Author's note: Again, a bid thanks to Kuryakingirl for working as my Beta. Thank you for the reviews, and I promise that the next chapter won't take so long to post.


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